ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — On any given mid-morning drive down Water Street bound for political announcements, there’s no trouble finding a parking spot outside the NDP headquarters, handy enough to the PCs that a reporter could walk the easy few blocks between the campaign offices.
The NDP is camped out for the election duration in the Bowring Building, and the PCs are further east in the old Fortis Building.
It’s somewhat telling of the ease of renting space downtown.
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“Never, never, never would you see that. … Those office buildings were full. … Everything was,” said Byron Murphy, a retail shop and building owner on Water Street, referring to the oil boom before companies moved out for new offices at places like Kelsey Drive and Hebron Way, or laid off employees.
“This is probably the biggest correction we have seen. … We’ve probably had more vacant space on the street than we’ve had in a number of years, there is no doubt about that. … Rates people were getting 10-12 years ago, they are not getting those rates now.”
Murphy nevertheless is confident in the resilience of downtown and said interest in second-floor office space is picking up lately. He said any vacant main-level spaces along Water Street are ripe for an entrepreneur looking to start something unique and thrive.
The current phase, he said, is just another turn in the cycle of downtown and it will bounce back.
Before opening his men’s wear store, Murphy worked at the Bowring department store from 1985-92.
It was upscale from the golden era of department stores, with a fancy perfume counter and accessories enticing customers walking off the street into the store.
Right about where the NDP offices are on the second floor, there was men's and ladies' wear.
Bowring was a place where NDP deputy campaign manager Amanda Will’s mom would shop for special gifts on a trip to St. John’s from Labrador City, like Will’s dad’s 40th birthday.
“Mom came in and bought a leather jacket downstairs which was like the talk of the town,” she recalled. “It was beautiful. … Bowring's was the place to come if you were getting certain things.”
NDP communications director Jean Graham, while attending Memorial University, worked in the restaurant on the lower level serving lunches to the merchant business crowd of the era — 1978.
Now she’s got an office overlooking Water Street in the spacious campaign suite, which came with furniture from previous tenants. And luckily enough, their cubicles have built-in window dividers, kind of like a COVID-19 screen.
Sneak peek
Before volunteers went to work on the campaign, The Telegram got a look inside the headquarters, which also doubles as NDP Leader Alison Coffin’s district campaign headquarters.
For all the campaigns WiIl has worked on, she has never had to put duct tape and a measuring tape in her political tool bag.
But following pandemic protocols turned the world of campaigning topsy turvy. There are no buses for media to board — the only bus belongs to the Liberals and it's restricted. (The NDP never had money for a bus previously, anyway.)
Each campaign HQ has set up separate scrum areas while reducing the traffic in and out of their offices.
In the case of the NDP HQ, it’s a small area on the landing outside the suite — enough room to take in a podium and a few journalists, Coffin, a couple of staffers and perhaps a candidate or two with just enough room for all to keep their distance.
Before any volunteers — 15-20 off and on — could attend the HQ, a supply of hand sanitizer had to be secured and, like any campaign, things like phones and internet installed, a bit of a frenzy since multiple campaign offices of all parties in metro were looking for the same thing in a hurry.
“It will be great once we get it all set up. It will be much more fun,” said Graham, who nevertheless acknowledged it won’t be the same as a pre-pandemic election.
Tory town
Over at the Fortis Building, Progressive Conservative Leader Ches Crosbie’s cavernous scrum area is a bit bunkerish — with concrete beams, industrial ducts and contrasting funky decorative lighting — but it has a sweeping view of St. John’s harbour, including out through The Narrows.
“If there was an award for best view, we’re going to get it after the election,” said building owner and PC candidate Vic Lawlor, laughing over the phone.
The PCs never did confirm whether it would allow reporters behind the black curtains.
The PC headquarters occupies 7,500 square feet of space and was empty beforehand. Lawlor hopes to turn it into a kind of artist colony after the election.
He said he offered it to the PCs because it is large enough to accommodate the socially distanced campaign crew, plus the media scrum area, which has to be cleaned after each event.
Lawlor, a property owner, acknowledged the abundance of vacant space downtown.
“It’s sad. It’s in dire straits," he said, adding he has tenants who haven’t been able to pay rent for the past six to eight months.
That’s why he got into politics, to help small business, Lawlor said.
Liberal land
The Liberals, meanwhile, are far away from that downtown scene, tucked in a plain brown brick office building on Crosbie Place, up the hill from Kenmount Road, renting the same spot above insurance offices they used during the last election, in 2019.
As a mini snapshot of a winter election of another time, when a reporter could easily stroll into a campaign headquarters for a look-see, we’ll take you back to 1999.
Liberal Leader Andrew Furey was then a campaign logistics volunteer on the Brian Tobin bus — 23 years old and still in medical school.
In a feature about three young Liberals, Furey told The Telegram he might run someday, when he was settled into his medical career and had a family, somewhere in his mid-30s to mid-40s.
The Liberal HQ of the day on Peet Street was plush with some leather furniture, while the Tories had peeling wood-veneer desks, described a Telegram feature from back then, which also noted the larger-than-life images of Tobin pasted to the windows overlooking the parking lot.
But more than 20 winters later, there seemed to be no images of Furey in the HQ windows, and what’s behind the Liberal scrum area isn’t for the media to see.
That's because the Liberals are extremely strict about the pandemic prevention guidelines, even administering the COVID-19 quiz to each and every journalist attending a political event.
The HQ is restricted to the essential campaign team, said Liberal party executive director Michael King.
The Liberals didn’t go hunting around. Health and safety was the priority.
“We knew there was a lot of space here,” King said. “We’ve obviously kept a no-visitors protocol.”
Admittedly, the adrenaline of a crowded headquarters is missing.
“It’s definitely a little different, I will say, because of the number of people,” he said.
“We’ve taken a good virtual approach. It’s probably not as exciting as before, obviously … but we’re still very excited about the campaign.”
The Newfoundland and Labrador Alliance doesn’t have a headquarters — either for the election or throughout the year, said party president Rudy Norman.
“Our team has worked 100 per cent virtual since our founding. This is an intentional move on our part as a cost-saving measure. The NL Alliance doesn’t accept corporate or union donations, so we feel it’s important to spend funds as wisely as we can,” he said by text message.
